


Morning Come Slowly

by spicyobsession



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Exes, F/F, Femslash, Love/Hate, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyobsession/pseuds/spicyobsession
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aria's Bunker, Omega, 2186. Day 5 of the Invasion. Nyreen intends to discuss tactics/plans with Aria, but talks about (and around) everything else instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Come Slowly

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written with CourierNinetyTwo, whose work all of you should read and leave adoring reviews for please and thanks.
> 
> Also this might be part 1 of a two-part oneshot, but I have no idea if I'll ever get the second part edited/finished -_-
> 
> Otherwise this works as a standalone scene too.

Hugging a stack of datapads to her chest, Nyreen gives two sharp raps on the door.

Aria's hand goes still over a sealed vial, eyes flickering towards the red glow of the lock. A quick gesture on her omnitool opens it. There were only two people who would bother her in here and Shepard didn’t have a habit of knocking. "Come in."

Nyreen takes a breath, short and quick, before stepping inside. Aria sitting on the bed with her hand hovering over a vial of (presumably) stims along with the gentle slope of her back is an image she won’t soon forget. She’s interrupting, but the door cycles close with a soft click, sealing her inside along with her decision. She clears her throat. 

"A rough inventory of our pooled resources," Nyreen says, holding up the datapads. "Thought you'd want to take a look."

Aria flips the stimulant case shut. It was infuriating, knowing her own resources were in the apartment above Afterlife just out of reach. The legal brands were barely half the dosage she was used to. "I don't need those to know the answer is not much."

Turning to take the datapads, her gaze locks on Nyreen's for a brief second before her attention is diverted to the top screen. Nyreen shifts from side to side while sneaking a glance or two at the door. 

"Well, we have enough guns. That's a start." Aria says.

Nyreen shakes her head. "The question is whether or not we have enough people.”

“And no," she adds immediately, "civilians don't count." Her stomach turns at the sight of Aria’s mouth quirking in a smile that strains the edge of that dark stripe. 

"They're not civilians once they pick up a gun, which is exactly what they want,” Aria says, setting the datapads beside the case. The rest could be read later. "You can practically hear them climbing the walls out there."

Nyreen gives the room a cursory glance and rolls her eyes, muttering, "Go join your subjects then, instead of holing yourself up here."

"And tell them to throw themselves into the force fields until whatever's generating them gives out?" Aria raises a brow. "My men are fine. The civilians don't need their hands held."

Her lips tense into a thin line. "So, are you out of stims or have you just been using them as long as I have? I never thought I'd see that sharp look in your eyes."

The words are timed precisely to coincide with a dim, familiar thud in her head that tells Nyreen another hit will be forthcoming. Blinking irritably, she replies, "Sleep's not an option when over half the station is under Cerberus control and overrun with monsters like the Adjutants."

She crosses over to the fridge in two swift strides and sneaks a peek at the contents. Another empty stim package was inside; the generic, Citadel brand too. "Besides," Nyreen continues in a light voice, "what makes you think that I only started using them just because you do?"

Aria's eyes narrow at the casual intrusion, but she stays stone still otherwise. There wasn't room to circle here, to keep Nyreen on her toes. "If it's not me, it's Omega. And really, what's the difference?"

Her eyes travel up the length of the turian’s back, the unfamiliar armor. The Talons had been brutal drug-runners, but Nyreen was wearing the red and gold with pride. She speaks with her eyes centered on the nape of Nyreen’s neck. "It's an occupational hazard when you're at the top."

There really isn't a difference, but Nyreen keeps that to herself as she turns around. The shadows under Aria's eyes, however, are a separate matter. Silently cursing herself, Nyreen says, "If you’re running out of stimulants, I can spare a few."

"I've had to take double doses because of Citadel-filtered garbage." Aria gestures to the case. "I..." Her eyes fall closed for a second, the fatigue clear before a hardened expression settles back into her features. "I'm always fine, Nyreen. I thought you’d stopped making it your business to care."

"It wouldn't do for you to collapse in the middle of combat," Nyreen says as evenly as she can. She should have waited to give Aria the headcount list. This was a terrible idea, coming into the same room, breathing the same air, sharing the same space. Again.

Aria's fingers brush over her tattooed brow, easing a line of strain away. "I've never collapsed in the middle of combat. I almost had Patriarch's hand through my chest to get Omega the first time." She shakes her head. "If it takes that and more, it'll get done."

Nyreen’s eyes grow comically huge at her next words. "I just don't understand why you're so damn invested. You should have left when you had the chance."

"Chances, you mean." A gloved hand slowly traces the wall, the sounds from the soldiers outside muffled by layers of titanium. "And leave innocent people to suffer?" Her mandibles flare as she turns to look at the matriarch. "This is as much my home as it is yours."

Aria can’t help a soft laugh. "Then a lot more's changed than I thought." Her eyes shift, locking on Nyreen's. "You keep talking about the people like they weren't there when you worked for me. But what's a turian without a banner to march under, right?"

A shrug of Nyreen’s shoulders acknowledges the hit. The reality of her privilege had only become obvious once she stepped away from the throne. "It took me a long time, but I found my way eventually." Her hand leaves the wall as she takes a tentative step in Aria's direction. "Omega's a cause worth fighting for. And on that, we can agree."

Aria doesn't want her shoulders to stiffen when she hears the scrape of Nyreen's boot, the step forward. Not when she couldn't decide between rage and relief at seeing the turian again. It should have been anger, no question. "What exactly do you want out of all of this?” she says, rising from the bed. “Are you promising them freedom? Because it won’t make them bulletproof.”

Nyreen nearly takes that step back at the tense line of Aria’s posture. Of course she’d assume “freedom”—a word (and concept) she’s spent three centuries attaching to Omega’s reputation. “It’s not about that. It’s about wanting better for them. It’s about progress, and knowing that they can achieve it.”

"Omega's been like this since before turians had markings." Aria's voice takes on a sharper edge as she makes a careful turn, taking a step towards Nyreen. "Your people called it the world without law, but mine didn't bother being so polite. If this station is the heart of evil, what does that make me?" She flashes her teeth like a predator, a near imitation of a smile. "What does that make you? Some kind of hero."

The way Aria words it is almost like a question, but Nyreen knows better—knows her better, knows each other better. She swallows, hand dropping from the wall to clench and unclench at their growing proximity. Her head feels light, in contrast to her sharply focused vision that zooms in on Aria’s taunting expression. “Every hero needs an archenemy,” Nyreen says carelessly.

"Mm. 'Arch' enemy. Flatterer." She takes another step forward. "If you really believed that, you wouldn't be working with me at all." Aria comes to a halt, close enough that she has to tilt her head up just slightly. "But here you are."

“In the spirit of compromise,” Nyreen explains and tips her head down to see Aria properly. As always, the height disparity lends her no advantage, judging from how small she feels under such withering blue eyes. How little things change. “Our situation has never been that cut and dry, as you well know.”

"It could have been if you just unclenched." Aria knows it's a risk, standing so close. Even when they were arguing in the past, proximity had been enough for them to forget the details. "There's no middle ground here, Nyreen. Omega doesn't abide by mercy, much less a bleeding heart."

How have they been talking this long without one of them reaching for the shotgun at the end of the bed? And who would bleed out first? The fact that Nyreen hasn’t left yet and Aria hasn’t dismissed her despite this hollow echo of past arguments is an answer in itself. 

Nyreen blinks away the swimmy feeling behind her eyes again. The stims. Has to be the stims (or lack thereof) that seem hellbent on dragging them back into old patterns. Nyreen counts the dust of speckles on Aria’s crest as she tightly says, “And with the way things are going, there won’t be anyone left to bleed. We all make choices we don’t want to make, even you.”

Aria catches that flicker of fatigue, the weakness. She can't help but see it. “No matter how many people die here, no matter how many travel warnings and exposés Citadel Space spins, someone always wants what Omega is selling."

Her mouth twists into a sneer. "Now you want it too. Go ahead and cloak it in nobility, bear the burden on those broad shoulders. You could have picked anywhere to try and save, but you stayed."

“Like I’ve said before, Omega’s worth saving,” Nyreen insists quietly, regretting the thickness of her sub-harmonics in her next words, “And worth staying for too, despite the fact that it doesn’t want me here.”

"You're such a f–” Aria hesitates, practically seeing the room spin. She needed more of the stimulants; sleep wasn't even an option at this point. The harsh expression breaks as she lets out a slow, steady breath. "If you don't stop dropping your guard, Nyreen, something's going to slip in."

She sees that pause, a lull in her demeanor that tugs at memories of them in her apartment where privacy and well-earned intimacy had allowed their defenses to drop and the vulnerability to show. Someone had slipped in already, long ago. “Aria,” she says gently, hating the choice she’s made as her hands come to hover over the asari’s shoulders, “When was the last time you slept?”

Aria's jaw tenses, eyes averting from Nyreen's in an attempt to dismiss the concern. The turian had to be just as tired as she was, but she was the one being offered sympathy, comfort. There had been nothing like it on the Citadel, no one she wanted. And she shouldn't have been wanting anyone now. "Does it matter?"

“I wouldn’t ask otherwise.” Nyreen draws in a long, shuddering breath of her own, tired of calculating her every response in a conversation she’d sworn not to have. “There’s still a few hours left before we hit the mines.”

Aria’s quiet for a moment. It would be easy to lean forward, to close her eyes. Weeks of waiting had become months of aggravation compounded by grief, spending her time in that catastrophe of a club. Nyreen, who she had forced completely out of her thoughts by necessity, was too damn close. Close enough for her to want to ask, to put her hands on the turian until neither of them were in any mood to ask questions.

Her hand rises slowly, laying itself over the top of Nyreen's and squeezing for a fraction of a second. If she stopped now, everything would fall apart. "I'll take the rest of the stim case. You should go make sure everyone gets a couple hours of sleep before we push into the mines.”

There’s a short silence that fills the sliver of space between their bodies. She wonders— not for the first time—what’s going through the other’s mind. Knowing her, another deflection or something mocking, but instead her hand gets touched and squeezed like the past three years never happened, and Nyreen suddenly finds it difficult to stand upright, fingers instinctively turning towards that warm pressure.

However, her reply is the exact dismissal she’s expected so the turian takes back her almost-reaction and nods. A bleary eye lingers on the bed behind Aria, for reasons less lewd than one would assume but more unwise than she’d like to admit. “Here,” she says unsteadily, pulling away from the other woman’s arms to grab a vial from the pouch on her hip on top of the dresser. “Take these. They last longer.”

"Nothing like an Omega high," Aria says halfway under her breath. It's not a 'thank you', even if some exhausted thought in the back of her mind wants it to be. This was just business. They'd burned away the rest a long time ago. "Kill time by the doors whenever you're ready. Shepard should be up to speed by now."

“Right.” Nyreen straightens her back, making a mental reminder to take another stim too. When she reaches the door, the lack of sleep strikes at her common sense again, turning her head around for one last glance at Aria, who’s still standing by the bed like she doesn’t need it. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe Nyreen’s simply projecting her internal confusion once more, as she tends to do.

Against her will, a trilling hum vibrates from her chest, richly inflected and layered with meaning for those who know Nyreen well enough. “By your leave,” she says and watches the door slide close between them.


End file.
